


I Sit Beside The Dark

by northern



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Gen, Hannibal is a Cannibal, M/M, Melodrama, Murder Husbands, Old Age, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:11:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5496623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northern/pseuds/northern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal is too old to struggle through the snow just to watch Will from afar anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Sit Beside The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Elizaria for doing the beta and helping me hammer out some of the final details!

At times, Will storms out of their house and goes for long walks with their current dogs padding behind him, running ahead, always watching Will for approval. Hannibal knows what it looks like, because he's watched them from a distance countless times – Will yanking twigs and leaves from shrubs by the road and the trees populating the tiny copses in the fields, tearing them to pieces and sometimes tossing sticks for the dogs to carry proudly. Often he doesn't return until sundown, or after, sometimes bringing back game, but mostly just himself. Hannibal is grateful that he does comes back, even when Hannibal's words have made him angry enough that he's speechless. Mute with rage.

Hannibal is too old to struggle through the snow just to watch Will from afar anymore. He cooks instead, while he waits. His new batch of beef broth has been resting since lunch after simmering through the night and most of the morning, filling the house with savory smells. He's not using it for dinner tonight, but the mason jars for storing it are out on the counter, waiting.

The cold pantry was inadequate when they first moved in, but it's larger now, full of rows of shelves with preserves and the few things he still cares enough about to send Will out for. A wheel of good cheese. A few other things. They don't travel much these days, but Will still hunts now and then, and while they don't often have access to the variety of quality ingredients Hannibal worked with when he was younger, it doesn't seem like an absolute necessity anymore. Hannibal has what he needs, and his bones ache in the cold.

He is making pirozhki, the meat and cabbage filling fragrant with onion and cumin, still warm, but not hot. He spoons it out on the rolled-out circles of pale dough and carefully crimps them shut with his fingers and the end of the spoon. Will prefers them a little glossy when they're done, so he brushes them all carefully with egg before it's time for the oven. The pirozhki will keep, in case Will takes the long road back.

Will is… a surprise every day. Something to delight in, still. Hannibal has never met anyone so complex – so volatile, yet with such strength of purpose – and he supposes now he never will. The smallest things might provoke the most intense reactions, all playing across Will's face in rapid succession while Hannibal looks and looks. He can't drink his fill of it.

It's almost dark when Will comes back. Hannibal is pouring the strained broth into the hot mason jars and sealing them as Will gets the dogs fed and settled before bringing the scent of snow and sweat and shredded bark into the kitchen. The overlay of wet dog fur is always there, to a greater or lesser extent. A slight amount of blood.

He comes into the kitchen in his socks, the dogs left still grumbling outside the door, and his gaze flicks around the room, touching on everything and nothing, as if checking that it's the same room it was when he left, that Hannibal hasn't somehow rearranged the furniture.

"Shut the door, please," Hannibal says and tightens the last lid. "There's tea and pirozhki. You had a long walk. You must be cold."

Will is staring at him as Hannibal turns to him. His face is flushed with the cold and exertion, and his eyes are… defiant, might be the best word. Aglow with agitation, but controlled. Like distant starlight. Beautiful.

"Hannibal," he says, "I don't ask you for much. But you have to stop doing this. It's too much."

Hannibal lifts the tea pot from the counter and sets it on the table where their settings are laid out, like always. "Please sit, Will," he says. "Surely this can wait until you've had something warm. It's been several hours."

Will tosses his keys on the table by the door with more force than is necessary and they make a loud clanking noise against the ceramic bowl and the other set of house keys lying in it; Hannibal's own. Hannibal sees them come to rest against one another and imagines his keys taking the impact of Will's, breaking their fall, their blades like limbs inextricably tangled.

Will sits. He drinks his tea. He eats three pirozhki, even though his knife and fork make more abrupt movements than at most meals. They are silent. This is not an unusual way for meals to go when Will is upset. Hannibal eats slowly, listening to the wind outside and the dogs moving now and then on the other side of the door, unusually slow to settle, enjoying the contrast between the hearty meat filling and the delicate celery green apple salad he made as a side. He watches Will.

After finishing his tea, Will pushes his plate back and reaches to pour himself a new cup. He holds it in front of himself on the table, with both hands, fingers curled around it although he can't still be cold. His color isn't as high anymore, and while he does have some tension in his body, there's not as much as there was when he came in and certainly not the tension of chill. No, this gesture is meant to be fortifying, something to do as he prepares himself to say something he perceives as important. Maybe a risk.

Hannibal pushes his own chair back slightly, turning it so that he's facing Will more, making himself open, waiting.

"I brought you a gift," Will mumbles, his voice tight and sullen.

Hannibal feels something bloom and loosen inside. Will has brought him something. Someone, most likely, after such a long drought of just them and the dogs and nothing extraordinary but Will himself and Will's agonizingly exquisite reactions.

"A gift," he says, tasting the word, carefully. He imagines. When he looks at Will, Will is staring at him, his gaze guarded.

They tidy away the leftovers and the dishes quickly.

 

***

 

Hannibal's gift is on the unheated glazed porch, wedged between the stool Will uses to pull his boots on and the large cupboard containing their outerwear for more extreme weather; not in the same room as the dogs, but certainly an explanation as to why they'd been so slow to settle. Also, it explains the blood Hannibal had smelled. Not that there is a lot of it. The man is tied and looks mostly unconscious, his mouth stuffed with a couple of rags. His face is very pale in the chilly air, and the red of the small wound above his eyebrow stands out well, the darker narrow tracks of dried blood spidering down his cheek.

It's very dark outside by now, and Hannibal can hear the silence of the cold empty miles around their house. There is a small, pleased glow inside his chest.

"Will," he says, "how rude of us to keep our guest waiting so long in this cold." He glances at Will, standing there next to him, considering. Will would never have left Hannibal's gift alone out here if there was any chance of him disrupting their dinner. He wouldn't have wanted to spoil the gift either, by allowing the man to slip away into severe hypothermia. "Would you be so kind as to help him inside, please?"

Come spring, they will have lived here for twelve years. At the end of the house, there is a space they used much more frequently up until Hannibal's hip and back got too bad, seven, eight years ago. It's accessible by a door from the hallway outside the laundry room; a second garage they didn't need and furnished for recreation instead. There are work tables along the walls, a few appliances and a large freezer. Most of the space in the room is empty, easily cleaned by the hose hanging rolled-up on the wall near the door to the rest of the house. There are no windows, and the wall-wide garage door leading outside is always locked.

Will half carries, half shoves the groaning man as he stumbles over the threshold, his arms still tightly bound against his body at two points. Hannibal shuts the door behind them.

"He's so cold, Will," Hannibal reprimands. "We wouldn't want him to slip away like our dear friend Bastien did."

"Shut the fuck up," Will says, his voice clipped. He pushes the bound man onto the work table – with some effort, Hannibal notices, since he's resisting more by now and Will has to nudge him along with the small knife he always carries – and begins securing him more tightly.

"Please, no," the man sobs.

"Really, Will," Hannibal remarks. "I have only our best interests in mind." He drifts closer, managing the way his hip protests by steadying himself against the edge of the table. The man's pants are muddy and damp. Hannibal tests the quality of the wool between his fingers absently. Not entirely offensive.

"And stop saying 'our dear friend Bastien'", Will continues, yanking the thigh restraints hard enough that the man on the table shouts, some previously acquired injury making itself known. Hannibal glances at the man's face, interested. His eyes are welling up, his gaze shifting from Will to Hannibal and escaping again to wander across the walls and ceiling as he shivers and whimpers.

"We only had him for a few hours," Will goes on, his voice still tight and irritated. "He wasn't our 'dear' anything."

"Oh, but he has since become a treasured symbol for us both, don't you think?" Hannibal says. "A dear reminder, I should say, of how to treat our guests."

Will pauses and looks up, something intent and malicious in his eyes as he looks at Hannibal. "I know how to treat our guests," he says. The barely controlled anger in his voice is lovely. Hannibal suppresses a shiver.

"Perhaps," he says, touching the bound man's upper arm lightly, "this strap here, a little tighter? I'm not sure you did it correctly."

Will steps closer along the table, leaning into Hannibal's body. Hannibal feels only joy, detecting a faint unsteadiness in Will's frame and knowing it's caused by Hannibal, not the man Will has in fact very competently secured to the work table. "Do you want your gift or not," Will bites out into Hannibal's face.

Hannibal smiles. His Will, so radiant. He lifts a hand to brush a gray curl behind Will's ear. It's still beautiful, Will's hair, although thinner. Will tries to shift away but stops himself, breathing deep and straightening up, something wild in his eyes that Hannibal knows; has seen many times, although not often directed toward himself.

"It's been a long time, my dear, my sweet," he says. "Are we finally here?" He is ready. He has been ready, for a long time now.

Will stares at him, and the intent in his eyes takes Hannibal's breath away with its beauty. It's like standing at the edge of a cliff, the ragged waves and rough rocks far, far beneath him in the dark.

"Let me go…" the man on the table whimpers quietly.

The seeming inevitability of the moment breaks and Will wrenches his gaze away from Hannibal, grabs the heavy wooden mallet from the next table and swings it down into the man's knee, all in an instant. All in the space of a sigh.

The man howls, not unlike an infant, shocked indrawn breaths reversing into screams that seem unstoppable, loud and raw, drawn out of his throat with no design or shape. Hannibal looks at the woolen pants, ruined even further by blood, the shattered bone distending the fabric into an unnatural shape. Hannibal thinks absently about a man he presented that way once, splintered bones playing peek-a-boo through flesh and clothes all over his body, the sharp points of them impaling several white birds. It was beautiful, once.

The mallet clatters back onto the work table, breaking his concentration. Hannibal turns to see Will walking out of the room.

"Will," he calls after him. It's too quiet to be really audible through the man's screams, half choked in fits and starts now, but Will turns. His eyes are soft again, beautiful, old and sad. They don't tell Hannibal anything he wants to hear.

"I'll be outside", he says, and Hannibal only hears it clearly because he's watching Will's face. Then Will turns again and leaves him alone in the room, the door shutting behind him with gentle force.

Hannibal breathes and watches his gift. The man is twitching in his bonds, moaning low and continuous. It's almost musical, but Hannibal takes no joy in the melody of pain at the moment. There is no one listening with him. He finally limps his way to the head of the table, all his bones suddenly aching, his limbs weak and inadequate for their purpose.

"I'm an old man, I'm afraid," he tells his gift, patting the side of his head where it's damp with sweat. His voice isn't as unaffected as he would like it to be, but no matter; this cracked vessel will soon be empty and hear nothing. "I simply don't have the energy I used to for these things."

"Don't… You could... call some… someone," the man pleads between hiccupping breaths and whimpers.

Hannibal sighs. This man has mistaken Hannibal's weakness for something to grab at like a rope, a hand to pull him out of the deep waters. This is what comes of age, of infirmity. People think you weak, and they think so rightly.

"Don't concern yourself," he says and turns to retrieve the rolled-up pack of smaller knives from the neighboring table. The leather is not quite gathering dust, but Hannibal feels the stiff way it unrolls. The knives are still sharp, though, and Hannibal selects one at random. He pinches the flesh of the man's cheek firmly between his thumb and the first knuckle of his index finger. The man makes an alarmed noise which becomes louder, panicked and distressed as Hannibal carves the chunk of flesh off. It's hard to flinch away effectively with your head restrained the way Will did it, but the shock of having a piece of your cheek sliced off makes the man manage and Hannibal's fingers slip in the blood, making him have to slice one more time to fully separate the flesh away. It's easier now, more to grip, and Hannibal snips the half-moon chunk neatly away before popping the meat into his mouth.

Salt and sweet, slick on his tongue. Hannibal closes his eyes to fully appreciate it. Chewing the flesh is tough like this, uncooked, and the skin even tougher, but Hannibal is not yet so toothless that he can't enjoy his meat rare.

The man wails, wordless, any hope of Hannibal being better company than Will evidently gone. Hannibal pats his head fondly again and makes a shushing sound, after swallowing. There is a stool and after considering Hannibal pulls it over. He can't do anything very strenuous, but certainly some light snacking, and after that… Maybe one organ, once the man has become weaker with blood loss. Perhaps… the liver. Hannibal sits down.

 

***

 

"You must have considered it before," Hannibal says as he scrubs his hands in the sink, getting the last of the blood out from under his fingernails. There is no use wrapping himself in plastic anymore since they haven't done any high profile art in years and years, but that means the process of getting himself clean is longer. He can't say he minds, though. He has grown to appreciate getting his hands and arms bloody to the elbow, and since it happens only rarely these days, he doesn't mind sacrificing a change of clothes and the extra time to clean up.

Will looks up from piling the black plastic bags just past the doorway. He has already done most of the cleaning of their recreational room. He will drive their leftovers out to the woods later, for the wildlife to get their own rare treat, if their routine holds after this. The dogs are sniffing near the bags, tails wagging, but they don't touch them. Will has taught them better than that.

"You want me to kill you," Will says, matter-of-factly. "I know. I've known that for a while now."

Hannibal smiles. His clever boy.

"Surprisingly," Will continues, his voice shaking somewhat, "after this many years with you, it's difficult for me to imagine being the only one left."

Hannibal turns from the sink, drying his hands on the linen towel hanging next to it. He watches Will's little moue. The lines around his mouth twist in a charming way. "And yet," Hannibal says, "I am seventy-six years of age, Will. I have not led a quiet life. My body is old and tired."

"We are an old pack of two," Will says, and the bitterness in his voice is poignant.

"And only one of these two still has sharp claws," Hannibal agrees.

Will shrugs, looking down at the bags on the floor. "Possibly, your gift disagreed."

Hannibal feels his lips quirk in a lopsided smile. "Even an old predator can open his mouth if the meal is brought to his lips. However, he can't bring down the prey. Can't stalk, can't lunge and overwhelm it with his strength. Can't bite down over the jugular and feel its life spurt and dribble away."

_Possibly_ , he has not come to terms with his own uselessness quite yet. He turns away, limping back into the kitchen, his hip aching and his tired, overcompensating back muscles threatening to cramp. He levers himself slowly down into his chair, managing not to let out any noise at the spike of pain when he changes position.

Will shuts the dogs in their room again. Hannibal can hear them protesting as he stares almost unseeingly at the row of wooden cupboards over the stove, the workbench, the sink. It all seems small and drab, the room unambitious, the furnishings ordinary.

"So you couldn't provoke me into killing you," Will says as he comes back into the kitchen, his tone almost considering. "So now you're trying flawed logic?"

Hannibal looks up at him, distracted from the dull throbbing ache of his hip and back. "I hardly see where this logic is flawed," he says, grateful for Will's bluntness. "We were born to hunt, Will. To revel in beautiful carnage. And I can't. I am old, and I am tired, and I can't imagine anything more fulfilling left for me to experience than to die by your hand. To look into your eyes as I escape into darkness."

"Well you're shit out of luck," Will says, his lips pulling down at the corners of his mouth. He pulls out his chair and sits down.

"There was a time," Hannibal tries, "when you were happy to fling us both to our deaths."

Will clenches his hands into fists on the table. He closes his eyes, then slowly opens them again. "No," he says. "No. I refuse to give you up before I absolutely have to."

"But why?" Hannibal asks. "I am of no use to you, and of no use to my purpose. I am a weak shade of a being." It is alarmingly difficult to control his voice, to prevent the words from becoming whispers.

Will sighs and sinks into his seat, the tension visibly going out of him. With one hand he rubs at the bridge of his nose, with the other he reaches over the table. The touch of Will's fingers causes Hannibal to grasp at his hand more firmly than he first meant to, but the intertwining of their fingers suddenly feels like the only strong, vibrant thing left in the world.

"Hannibal," Will says, and his voice is full of emotion. Exhaustion, but also warmth and something Hannibal can't put words to. He doesn't, he is surprised to find, have the energy to want to do anything but experience this connection, this last meaningful thing in a universe that has no room for dried up husks. He is chaff, still somehow caught in the careful hand of the farmer, still not blown away on the wind.

"Hannibal," Will says again, more tenderly, and draws Hannibal's hand across the table, presses it against his cheek, kisses the base of his thumb. His lips are warm. "You are all I have left. Let me keep you a little bit longer?"

Hannibal meets Will's eyes. "How long?" he asks, the words chafing like salt on his bleeding tongue. "Until all my senses are dulled? Until your claws and teeth fall out as well? Until my thoughts and reasonings fall apart like frail snowflakes under the sun?"

Will's grip on his hand grows tighter. "No," he says, closing his eyes briefly. "No. Not that long. I won't do that to you. Just… a little while longer. For me."

It's like a weight on his chest, that 'for me', preventing him from being swept away by that wind, from dancing away into nothing, fading into shadow, but he nods. He acquiesces. Because Will is the only one who can ask such a thing of him and be allowed.

"Don't leave me alone again," he says without quite meaning to.

"Alone?" Will asks.

"When you bring me such a gift again, don't leave me alone. Enjoying it with you is half the pleasure. More," he admits, although it pains him to be so direct.

Will's eyes soften again. "I'm sorry," he says, kissing Hannibal's hand again. "I was upset. Of course I'll stay. I miss sharing that with you."

Hannibal feels a tiny warmth spreading in his chest, in the base of his throat. Perhaps there are still a few things left to look forward to, if he will only ask for them. His beautiful Will, resplendent in blood and rapturous fury, even if not directed toward him. Yes, he does want to see that again.

"A little while longer," he agrees, and Will looks at him with more love in his eyes than Hannibal has seen there for years. "Yes."


End file.
